US confirms end to editing ban on 'sanctioned' authors

The US Treasury Department has reversed a controversial ruling that would have required scholarly journals to obtain the government's permission to edit papers from countries under a US trade embargo.

A new policy directive, spelled out in a letter to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers — which decided to exclude papers from scientists in Iran, Cuba, Iraq, Libya and Sudan in 2002 — is expected to resolve months of confusion about how to handle manuscripts from those countries.

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control initially said that a license would be required to perform any editing of manuscripts. But last week it cleared the way for publishers to follow their normal procedures in editing papers from anywhere in the world.